By 2014, when Holmes was just 30 years old, Theranos was valued at over $9 billion, according to the BBC. However, by that time, Holmes’ blood testing empire was already starting to unravel. Former employees and whistleblowers had begun to come out of the woodwork, and soon, it became apparent that the blood analyzer machine that Holmes had long touted was a fraud. A federal investigation was launched, and an audit was conducted by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, and the company she had built and run for a decade began to crumble. Theranos was barred from participating in the blood-testing business for two years, and Holmes was forced to pay out $4.65 million to 175,000 consumers in Arizona who brought a consumer fraud lawsuit against Theranos, as well as another $30,000 penalty to settle with the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, per USA Today.
Holmes was eventually forced to dissolve her company. In March 2018, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission charged Holmes with “massive fraud,” claiming that she had raised over $700 million by “deceiving investors by making it appear as if Theranos had successfully developed a commercially-ready portable blood analyzer,” via USA Today. She was forced to pay another $500,000 penalty and was “barred from serving as an officer or director of a public company” for a minimum of 10 years.
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